Descent
by Captain Fantastic
Summary: That day you thought he could have loved you, but now it's too late. Love is forever, and he loves your sister. (Snow White and Rose Red vignette. 2013 Ficathon entry.)


_**For Seraph.  
**_

_**xxxx**_

It happens beneath the boughs of an oak tree. Spectral sunlight through the leaves, shafts of cool light and shadow. It is not a golden day. Your feet are bare and you can see the grass stabbing between your toes. You stare. Around you, the words carry on. To have and to hold. You don't look up, but you know they are kissing. You know without looking the way she fits precisely in his arms, the way his fingers leave invisible trails along her skin.

People are cheering. You don't want to hear them. You want to hear the sigh of the breeze and the groan of the tree limbs, bending beneath the load of their years. You listen but the world will not speak for you.

His shoulder brushes yours as they pass. He looks at you, or rather, he looks through you. Around him you can never shake the feeling that perhaps you are translucent, and just behind you is the person he really wants to see. He smiles at that person. His arm is still around his new bride's shoulders, and they lurch into the crowd, engulfed in the noise and heat of it. You do not move.

A single leaf falls. You reach out to catch it, but it swirls lazily from your grasp. It rests on the ground, feather-light. You step on it to feel the crunch of a thousand shattering veins, bone-dry and brittle. Something like pain surges through you.

_Autumn. They are walking beneath trees the color of fire and sunset. Clasped hands, lazy smiles, a glittering ring. You walk just ahead of them, hands in pockets, head down, always down. You try not to listen but your ears burn. Their secrets are not what you want to hear. You want to hear the crunch of leaves beneath your feet, the breath of wind in the air. You want to hear the earth move around you to reassure yourself that it hasn't quickened. (The wedding is in three days.)_

She's weaving the flowers into her hair. The white sides of the tent pucker in the breeze. You can't look in the mirror because the glare of white blinds you. Only a few hundred feet away, he is waiting for her, standing beneath the boughs of their altar.

"Are you happy?" she asks you.

It's a question you can't answer. How can you not be happy, when her bliss is your lifeblood, when her every smile is light itself? But when he takes her by the hand and promises to love her and only her, for now and forever, how can you ever be happy again?

The world is still spinning, you tell yourself. It can't stop spinning.

"How long is forever?" you ask.

She doesn't respond.

_Winter. Your sister's ring glistens new beneath an old, looming moon. You sit on the steps. Congratulations are an ocean behind you, with waves that push and pull. You stand up and start to walk. You know the road doesn't go on forever, but what if it does? What if the constellations, blanketed now in smog and streetlights, are waiting for you? The pavement is your map and the horizon is a ladder. You can leave them all behind. (They'll bring you back, though. They always do.) _

She makes you breakfast on the morning of her wedding, because she is your sister and she loves you. Orange juice and pancakes. Sometimes she makes them in the shape of hearts, but today they are plain, lumpish circles. She is in a hurry.

"Here."

She shakes a pill into her hand and presses it into yours. You stare at it while she bustles away, shuffling dishes and humming a song she heard on the radio. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see that she is watching you, waiting. For a moment, the humming ceases.

You swallow the pill with a gulp of juice and she turns away, humming resumed.

"I don't think I need it today," you say, though it is too late and you can already feel the pill dissolving into your system, a slow explosion of white into the red of your blood.

"We've talked about this."

She has, and you've listened. But the pill takes you nowhere. It anchors you, holds you so still you can no longer feel the earth moving around you. The pill keeps you here, and today you want to be far away.

_Autumn. You saw him first, while your sister was buying coffee. He was wearing a grey jacket and a navy scarf. He smiled at you. Then your sister appeared, and the rest played out so fast that sometimes you wonder if maybe you dreamt it all. Maybe one day you'll blink and see him there in navy and grey. He'll smile, and you'll smile, and he'll speak, and you'll speak. When your sister arrives (all in white with hair like ebony) it will be too late. Love is forever._

Maybe he could have loved you first, but you will never know for sure. The wedding is over. Ribbons flutter limply in the boughs of the oak. Two balloons, paired together, are caught in the wind. They sail higher and higher in a graceful ascent, until one breaks away, fractures into nothing. Its twin still soars. You watch until the sun burns tears into your eyes. Stars burst in your vision, and you try to feel the world spin around you.

Once, he asked you what you are doing when you stand there so still in the center of it all. You told him the truth because you aren't sure how to lie. He stood beside you to feel the movement of the globe until your sister came outside and told him he didn't have to humor you.

That day you thought he could have loved you, but now it's too late. Love is forever, and he loves your sister.

"Are you happy?" your sister asks.

Her bliss is your lifeblood, but he smiled at you first. Now there are pills inside of you. Now their vows have been spoken. The spinning has stopped.

"Can we go back to the beginning?" you ask.

She doesn't respond.


End file.
